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Friday, July 8, 2016

Riders of Icarus- First Impressions

Last week I tried out one of the newly 'released' games (open beta as of now) Riders of Icarus. It seems to be pretty decent of a game thus far. This isn't a review, merely throwing my thoughts out there on my impression of the game so far with some shiny pics.

Overall it is a decent game, pretty too. The classes are- if nothing amazing or new- solid, for the most part. I think my biggest annoyance is that anything besides the priest needs to chug health pots or regen a little bit. There are no specs for classes either, no real variety. But the game is interesting and entertaining. I liked the Guardian and priest classes, though the guardian was more the classic warrior, I had wished maybe for a paladin type class. The rogue was fun too, a little squishy, or was it called assassin? Basic trinity classes. You get the idea. The Eastern version sports a few more classes than what we have, always hate playing catch up like that.

Where the game gets interesting is in the'pet' aspect, I use the term pet lightly, more on that later. You can tame almost any animal in the wild. Why not foxes?! That one still puzzles me as I really wanted one. Anyhow, there is a huge selection and it is pretty easy to tame these beasts. A simple mini game that is all about chance. There really is no skill involved, so anyone can do it.

There is a huge selection of pets, quite nice choices too. You can even obtain flying mounts. You can also change these mounts into pets. These pets can be kept as mounts, with eventual mounted combat abilities available or used as a little sidekick pet. Basically it is a shrunken version with a stamina bar, when the bar runs out your pet goes away until it regens stamina back. I don't like the stamina mechanic at all, sort of ruins the whole pet deal for me. Pets feel very useless unless you are using it for a mount. In my eyes this is a mount collecting game. I am not even going to touch the topic of mounted combat. For a game centered on mounts/pets, whatever you want to call them, they feel a bit clunky. But they still function and have the ability to sprint.

I just wish it had a more user friendly deal with pets, mounts and stamina. Maybe not needed to chug so many potions? All of this seems a bit dated to really implement in a game releasing in 2016. The game does have some good points. There is an excitement of taming rare pets. I caught quite a few! They are lovely and so many of them. Loved the unicorns, the lynx, the spiders were even cool too. Creepy, but cool. Flying is pretty neat, I love flying in any game. Combat did feel good, it really did, despite the classes not being anything new, that isn't always a bad thing. A bigger selection is always better though. Combat can be action mode or classic old school point and click. I picked classic because I'm an old school gamer. I hate this action crap sometimes, having wrist issues. Anyhow, both seem to work great. Choices are awesome!

The world is beautiful. The characters are pretty snazzy looking. Gear as you level looks pretty cool too! The world is huge, there are tons of mounts to collect, the daily quests and achievements award cash shop currency. Speaking of, the cash shop is pretty decently prices from what I saw. You don't really need anything out of there. It is nice to support the game you are playing though, if you want to keep playing it!

All in all it is nothing new as far as classes and combat, but it adds a nice twist with mount/pets and mounted combat. A solid game, that looks good. It's free in open beta currently so it is worth a shot. Nothing to lose, plus there is a quest currently for a fire raven shoulder pet (as soon as you get out of tutorial quest is there). Link here to official website.

5 comments:

Heh! You beat me to it. I have the screenshots ready for a post but I haven't had time to write it yet.

I only got through the tutorial to the point where I tamed the Unicorn so I probably need to get a bit further before I make any judgments. It looks a bit dated and feels a bit clunky but it has some appeal.

If I'm not playing Blade and Soul or Black Desert right now, though, I can't really see any reason to play this one...

Yes, it's a little dated looking, especially subs of the scenery. I still thought it very lovely.

The guardian made me wish for the paladin in Vanguard or perhaps in eq2, maybe it was the old school feeling combat. I ended up playing priest and guarding to around 14, then logged into eq2 o make a paladin. Don't get me wrong, I had fun, it just felt dated chugging pots on the melee character.

I'll probably log in a couple times a week to putter around, I can't see it as my main game at the moment.